Alternate Earth
by Wilbatronium
Summary: My AU where in the end of H2 the prophets stuff up the slipspace jump, after all how do they know what they're doing when they try to win a war against Master Chief.
1. ARRIVAL

**CHAPTER 1**

 **ARRIVAL**

 **A/N this is an AU with Cortana being smart and creating a copy of herself to detonate** ** _In Amber Clad_** **on** ** _High Charity._** **If I get any facts wrong I claim creative license. Btw its 2016 cuz screw trump (you'll see what i mean)**

Location: On board Forerunner Dreadnought in Slipspace

Time: Estimated November 3rd, 2552, 1800 hours

"Uhhh Chief, do you trust really the prophet's or the brute's piloting enough to let them handle this instead of me?" Cortana teased the Master Chief.

"Like your driving is any better Cortana, I just landed at high speeds onto a forerunner ship, so give me a moment to get up and pilot it myself." Chief replied as he slowly got up from his landing. Master Chief started towards the nearest terminal so Cortana could lead him to the bridge.

"Wow Chief this is incredible the technology in these forerunner ships, they are so much more technologically advanced than human or even covenant ones."

"Cortana. Bridge. Now."

"Oh right sorry, I've set a way point on your HUD and from the looks of these amazing cameras, there is nothing in the hallways there, so all the brutes and Truth should be on the bridge."

The Chief retrieved Cortana before he started towards the first doors, taking position on the right as Cortana opened it and doing the same all the way to the bridge. As he finally got through the doors he saw them arrive out of slipspace, then when he looked around he only noticed one object out of place. Truth's chair. The Chief made his way towards the chair, his gun at the ready.

He slowly approached to investigate it, but suddenly a Fuel Rod projectile went right past his head, and another and another...

and right into the viewing glass. As it turned out the forerunners, just like humans, had fashion over function in mind as they like looking at the stars. And so the 3 fuel rod shots just barely managed to crack the glass enough that the final fuel rod projectile that just passed his head could break the glass, and with no hand holds near by the Chief went flying out.

Towards Earth. Wait Earth? Chief thought as he flew towards the planet. It was barely 10 minutes since he got on board. While the original trip to Installation 05 on board In Amber Clad had taken 3 hours, long enough to brief everyone on board to what was happening.

When Chief had a closer look he saw something, or rather the lack of something. He was above America, he knew from his exemplary 'education', but there was no Orbital Defense Platform, that there was always at least one of on each continent. Cortana seemed to notice this too.

"Ummm Chief aren't there meant to be ODPs?"

"I noticed that too, but well know more about it as we are falling towards it right now, so I'll aim for water and so could you"

"Lock your armour so you don't die in an anticlimactic way? Sure!"

He continued to plummet as terminal velocity but he moved his body so he slowly headed more towards the ocean than the US, as so its less painful when he hit, but only if he could break the surface tension before hitting. To do so, as he was less than 500m, he had to quickly grab his BR55 out and shot at the water then he narrowly put his BR on his back before he crashed into the Pacific Ocean, and blacked out.

Location: Area 51, Lincoin County, Nevada, USA

Time: November 3rd, 2016, 1837 hours

"Sir, we just got an unexpected reading from our satellite."

"What do you see soldier?"

"Something came close by our satellite."

"What do you mean close LTJG?"

"Sir, it came within 100 metres of our satellite."

"Ensign, check all satellites in space right now, I hope our intelligence didn't miss something."

"Yes sir!" Another voice replied.

"Vice Admiral, it didn't look like a satellite!" The first voice commented.

 **A/N I don't know who'd be in Area 51 monitoring radar, whether it is Navy, Army, Marines or Air Force.**


	2. DISCOVERY

**CHAPTER 2**

 **DISCOVERY**

 **A/N thanks to** **random** **for its randomness with names. Also in H2 there is the bit right before Chief throws the bomb off the station where he sucks Cortana up through his hand. Its soooo sick but they never do it again.**

Location: Washington State coast

Time: November 4th, 2016, 0406 hours

Why am I doing this? Senior Chief Petty Officer Norman Robert thought to himself as he and his squad of Navy Seals, consisting of POFC Byrn Grant, POFC Nikon Milan, POFC Evelyne Marie and POFC Aileen Tasha, headed out on a V-22 Osprey to the aircraft carrier CVN-68 Nimitz, as it was the closest aircraft carrier to thing that dropped in the ocean at 1838 hours the night before. Robert's squad was going to go diving to look for the thing that fell in the ocean off Washington state.

"Cortana how long was I out?" was Chiefs first question as he woke up.

"Approximately 9 and a half hours, and luckily you or your helmet didn't take any damage from that fall, but don't try it again."

"I wasn't planning on it in the first place, where are we by the way?"

"According to my scans we are off the coast of the United States of America, but that isn't the most interesting part, I searched for connections to anything, whether its internet or transmissions and I found something extremely interesting and impossible to believe, and remember i had 9 hours to check, we are in the year 2016."

"I agree Cortana, it is impossible."

"Oh and guess what Chief, the most secret part of the US intelligence, and yes I hacked it, it was a piece of cake by the way, they saw something big and something small falling from the sky. The small one landed in the Pacific and they are sending teams to find it, or in other words find you."

"Better move then Cortana, which way? I'm assuming East?" He said as he raised his head above the water, after swimming all the way up from many hundreds of metres below.

"Yes Chief, you are right, East is the way to go if you want to reach land anytime soon."

He started to swim that way when in the distance Cortana was picking up military signals.

"Better get going Chief!" The Chief quickly swam away and amazingly made it to land in 10 minutes, considering he was 3kms out to sea.

As he made his way up to the beach he could only see trees for many kilometres in either direction. While he made his way up the beach and into the trees Cortana commented

"Chief, while you were swimming I was watching the transmissions of the US Navy and it seems the Forerunner Dreadnought has landed in the desert and luckily away from everything."

Captain Brenden Geoff of the CVN Nimitz was really confused. They had detected something made from metal travel at almost 20km/h with no visible means of propulsion. He had sent the Ospreys to the beach to meet it at the beach but it had taken them 10 minutes to get squads on board and in the air. The first team to report in had said that they had found huge foot prints on the ground, matching the exact vector they had detected the thing. That squad just happened to be Robert's and they were tasked to continue searching.

They had followed the footsteps into the forest, where they seemingly disappeared.

Meanwhile Master Chief had heard them with his Spartan senses and had looped round to watch them. He saw them carrying what Cortana told him were M16A4s, which with their 5.56x45mm NATO rounds could hardly do anything to his shields let along his titanium ones seemed to be highly trained only using hand movements and barely making a sound, but he could hear them easily with his senses augmentations. He looped behind the soldiers to find were they came from. Just before he came out of the clearing he activated his Active Camouflage to approach the primitive air transport that used propellers. He came around the back of the aircraft and knocked on the back, as he saw a pilot in the cockpit as he came round. The back door opened and the entire inside was visible, and only the pilot was in there. Master Chief quickly grabbed the pilot by the neck and covered his mouth, all while camouflaged, but made sure to only make the pilot unconscious.

As they entered the osprey, as Cortana had told Chief, he held his hand above the controls so Cortana could transfer in.

"Its very squishy in here Chief, there digital technology is so primitive, so I'd like to get out as quick as possible, so make sure your ready to go!"

As soon as the engines started Robert's squad returned from the forest. They instantly saw the pilot unconscious behind the osprey, and because it was taking off a hostile was inside so they started shooting. The one problem that would normally be good, the amazing armour, turned out to be a hindrance as the osprey just bounced their shots. Once they realised this they stopped firing as the bounced bullets could have hit the pilot.

 **A/N Correct me if I'm wrong about anything you Americans as I have no clue about you guy as I'm an Aussie**


	3. SURPRISE

**CHAPTER 3**

 **SURPRISE**

Location: CVN-68 Nimitz, Washington State Coastline, USA Waters

Time: November 4th, 2016, 1200 hours

"So your telling me you saw and heard nothing, then out of nowhere you get lifted up in the air from around your neck and pass out?!" Vice Admiral Steven Horatio yelled throughout the briefing room. The pilot of the osprey that got stolen by a 'magical being' was as pale as a ghost.

"Uhhh umm errr y y ye es si sir..."

"Please tell me I didn't come out here on this carrier for a fantasy story!"

"Umm Sir, it wasn't a fantasy story." A Lieutenant Junior Grade came up to him. "We looked at the footage on his helmet and we saw this." She held out a tablet to show the VA. The VA looked on in confusion as the video played and banging could be heard, they the view instead of looking out the cockpit started to turn around and head to the door at the back. Suddenly as the pilot got onto the sand the view got higher and higher as he was lifted up, then dropped to the floor facing the sky. It stayed like this for a couple seconds before M16A4 gunshots could be heard and the bouncing of bullets off metal could also be heard. Then in the view the osprey could be seen flying over then not even 5 seconds later there were soldiers looking down at the pilot.

"But that's not all sir." The Lieutenant then paused and rewound the video to when the pilot was 'floating'. "Look closely here sir." She said as she spread her fingers apart on a section of the screen, zooming it in. There was a distortion in the frame. She then played it and it was only slightly visible that the distorted part moved.

"Please someone tell me North Korea ain't making damn invisible soldiers that fall from the sky!" Horatio exclaimed as he watched it. "The thing must have known we were onto it. I want a small army to head to the other thing in the desert, but no comms. GOT IT?"

"Sir, Yes Sir!" was heard all around him.

"Chief we are about 5km away from the supposed Forerunner Dreadnought." Cortana said as 'their' osprey flew across the desert towards the gigantic dreadnought as they wanted to find what the Prophet of Truth wanted with Earth. The dreadnought was many kilometres wide so from 5km away it was very visible

After only 30 seconds at the cruising speed of 450km/h they were right up close to the dreadnought. Cortana said she hadn't heard anyone coming this way, which was a good sign as the US Army had absolutely no clue as to what they would be going against, as even 500 years in the future humanity could barely stand against the immensely more powerful gear. Thinking about it Chief was anxious to get back and help humanity defend Earth as its final stand but he was glad at least while he was gone the Sangheili, lead by the Arbiter, who last he heard showed surprising willingness to free the humans from the brutes, were helping rid the galaxy of the covenant's lies.

They started circling the dreadnought to try and find an entry. As they past a part of the ship that was sticking out they got met by many troops. Some had assault rifles, some had rocket launchers, others were in HMMWVs with mounted M249 LMGs and finally there was a M1A2 Abrams. Chief of course didn't know the names, but anyone with common sense would be able to figure out that bigger guns were worse for his armour.

"Land the osprey now or we will shoot." A voice full of authority sounded throughout the console in front of Chief. Then out of nowhere a sudden and repetitive beep came out of the console.

"I know I'm a good pilot Chief but those are lock on signals. I suggest land and try something else, maybe try something new."

"Thought I'd try shooting my way out - mix things up a little." Chief said jokingly.

"Just keep your head down... There's two of us in here, remember." Mocking his reference.


	4. IMPOSSIBLE

**CHAPTER** **4**

 **IMPOSSIBLE**

Location: Somewhere in the Great Basin Desert, Nevada, USA

Time: November 4th, 2016, 1800 hours

Cortana slowly landed their osprey, facing towards the soldiers, but one or two of the soldiers winced as it bounced around a bit. Slowly but surely Chief walked around the side, barely making a sound even in titanium boots as he had lots of practice.

As the Chief got into view of the soldiers may of their eyes burst out of their sockets, even though there was a gigantic ship in the background. It was a humanoid figure that was completely covered in armour and was over 2 metres tall. Quickly regaining his composure, the SCPO questioned, "Senior Chief Petty Officer Norman Robert, what in the world are you?"

"Master Chief Sierra-117 of the UNSC Navy." Master Chief responded after a brief hesitation and a talk with Cortana, that concluded in keeping her a secret. Many of the soldiers seemed surprised that 'Sierra-117' was a soldier, rather than a robot as Master Chief had been called many times. Master Chief was very reluctant to stay and this was solidified even more when SCPO Robert said,

"Please lay down your weapons and come with us." Chief knew that this would take way too long, as there would be an endless amount of questions, so instead he assessed everything around him. As he came out he saw a terminal and a door, and in front of him now there were many soldiers. The assault rifles and LMGs would be essentially harmless against his shields and armour, but the rocket launcher and tank would be a problem.

"No sir." is all Chief says in reply as he threw a primed frag towards and into the tank barrel and shoots two bullets at every rocket launcher disabling frag in the tank exploded as he retreated behind the osprey to avoid incoming fire. All the soldiers were mind boggled when the bullets that did hit him made something yellow around the soldier appear and the bullets did nothing.

"What demon from hell is this!?" A navy seal said from within the bullet storm. Chief then engaged his cloak as they stopped firing and carefully walked over to the terminal for the door and held his hand over it for Cortana to transfer. "Ah thanks, the door will be open…. now." as soon as Cortana said that the door opened and Chief bolted through.

"And locked." he heard Cortana say as the door closed behind him. He then went to walk to a terminal to get Cortana back, "Oh," Cortana sulked, "Out already?" She continued as Chief sucked her up.

As they ran along the corridors Cortana started telling Chief about some of the things she found. "You know how the Covenant were looking for the Ark, and they are here on Earth, I found out why, and it's impossible to believe. There is a structure in Africa that makes a portal to the Ark, and that portal leads out of this galaxy!"

"I agree Cortana, impossible, how has humanity got a billion kilometres in the sky but not even 1km underground!"

"That's not all Chief, and this bit is actually scary, the artifact is 117km in diameter, it's like you were meant to come here." Chief was really shocked at this but kept going anyway. He had been running for half an hour before something appeared on his motion tracker. He peered around the corner as he activated his camo, and he saw 2 brutes facing away from him. He started with the left one by stabbing it in the back of the neck with his combat knife, and before the other could turn to see his buddy he received a heavy titanium foot to the face.

"Never thought you had those sorts of moves in you Chief, maybe you could be a dancer." All Cortana got in response was a grumble from him as he carefully continued on. After another 30 minutes they arrived at the bridge, he immediately picked up something on his scanners, in fact he picked up over 10 signals. _So the prophet has a personal guard,_ Chief thought to himself as he quietly entered the room with his Active Camouflage. He could see 12 Jiralhanae Honour Guardsmen and the Prophet of Truth. Chief slowly moved towards the prophet but was very careful so as to not him one of the brutes, as his position would be given away. As he approached he prophet he did what most would think unthinkable, even Cortana did, "Oh no Chief, that's a bad idea," he charged at Truth picking him up and the chair, and by now the honour guards had realised him, and he then ran straight to the window and jumped out of the huge hole. He slid down the side as carefully as he could but he was still going 30km/h down the slope and he was trying to slow down on the edges that passed by him. Suddenly and with little warning the slope ended, leaving him to tumble to the ground. He curled up in a ball and the prophet was out on its chair rapidly falling to the floor. "Cortana, lock the armour."

The soldiers heard the screaming of the prophet when it got about half way down. They all looked up in surprise and horror as a hover chair and a ball of metal fell down extremely fast. But that wasn't the end of the daily surprises. Master Chief hit the desert floor at such great speeds he made a crater that was 2m deep at the lowest point. The prophet on the other had landed sharply but with the assistance of the hover chair he managed to start flying away. Much to everyone's horror as they started crowding around the crater, they saw the soldier from earlier start getting up. "Is it actually a robot or something!?" someone yelled in surprise. _More of these comments._ Chief thought as he started to sprint to the prophet's flying chair. All the soldiers were amazed as he ran at the prophet at 90km/h. When he was about at the chair he punched the bottom of the chair with such force the Prophet of Truth went flying out even breaking the safety harness.

"You are hereby under arrest by the United Nations Space Command for your acts of attempted genocide of humanity." He said as he put the prophet in the chair in such a way it couldn't control it nor move. By the time he was saying it some of the soldiers had caught up and were shocked at his words and the skinny long-necked alien. _Attempted genocide?!_ They were all confused as they couldn't even go to other planets let alone discover alien life, as that was for 500 years in the future.

 **A/N I decided that Master Chief would get some reinforcements in the next chapter**


	5. ONYX

**CHAPTER** **5**

 **ONYX**

 **A/N the ship class later on in this chapter is unknown so I made my own name, but it looks like the did acts one from H4**

Location: Unknown Location inside Forerunner Micro Dyson Sphere, formerly XF-063/Onyx

Time: November 4th, 2016, 1500 hours

1736 Shameful Gateway flew along the monorail from the control centre in the Micro Dyson Sphere he was meant to be monitoring. It detected something enter the shield world after he got a signal that one of the Halo installations had fired. All Gateway hoped was that the flood had not entered the shield world. In fact he would be glad for a reclaimer to have entered. After going about 100km away from the control centre he picked up many signals belonging to a group called the UNSC. He was extremely happy about that because those symbols only reclaimers use. He eventually saw them in a clearing looking around.

* * *

"Anything interesting yet guys?" Fred asked everyone.

"No sir" or "Nothing Fred" were the replies from Mendez, Halsey, Linda, Ash, Tom, Olivia and Mark.

"Kelly?" Fred questioned as he didn't get a response from her.

"I see something coming at us, looks like a smaller sentinel." She said as they all turned to her and got out their weapons if they had one. They could all see it as it slowly approached.

"Greetings. I am the Monitor of Shield 135. I am 1736 Shameful Gateway, and why the hostilities reclaimer?" Everyone one was surprised to say the least, even those who had heard about monitors from the Chief, they never expected to see one, even Halsey.

Fred replied as he was their leader, "We just arrived here from the planet Onyx through a slipspace rupture, where are we now? And why do you call us reclaimer? Can you get us back to our home?"

Gateway replied with little hesitation, "This Micro Dyson Sphere is inside the planet you call Onyx. You are the reclaimers because you are the ones the Forerunners left to uphold the Mantle of Responsibility. And finally it depends, I can send a message from here to another Installation, requesting a ship, and I can get you out of this sphere to that installation but beyond that I can't do anything."

"That will be enough Gateway, as we have an AI with us, and thank you for helping." Fred responded kindly.

"I was my honour to help a reclaimer, and could I meet with this AI, I am very interested in your species. Also I was wondering if I could come with you, and if so I will start making my replacement"

"Sure, come along,"

* * *

As they walked to the monorail to be transported to the control centre Jerrod, Halsey's AI, was making a dumb AI replacement for Gateway as through their conversations Jerrod had discovered Gateway was a curious and loyal monitor. Gateway was so curious that he wanted to leave his shield world to explore everything outside. He wanted to see natural planets, wildlife and the structures the humans had made for themselves.

After the 100km trip they arrived at the control centre. Everyone was awestruck as they walked along the huge bridge behind Shameful Gateway. They bridge was made with a frame of some sort of metal, with glass making the floor. The monorail took them up 200m so from up there on the bridge it was an impressive view, which all the Spartans made sure they were recording. What shocked them most though is what they found when they entered a slipspace rupture at the end of the bridge.

They landed on a floating platform and before them stood a grand city of the Forerunners along a coastline, with many towering skyscrapers and grassland in between. The structures visible were definitely Forerunner, but the design look like it was meant for fashion over function, with glowing lights, glass platforms, huge hardlight bridges between the skyscrapers and many big water fountains. There were also many flying platforms, which made it look like the city had two layers with the skyscrapers continuing between them. The ocean was glistening in the sun that was behind the Spartans.

Slowly getting closer to them they could see a Forerunner Capital Ship, or that's what the monitor had said. From the distance they were at it looked tiny, though as if it could only carry 1 Spartan. They all knew this was just perspective though, but when it was getting closer and closer they realised just how big it and the city was, as it was about 1/4 of the building's height. It towered over all of them even though it was still far away, and when it finally got within 100 metres none of the humans could see the top, as it went on for 100km either way.. It was then they realised the size of the planet, or so they thought, that they were on, that it must be bigger than Sol. Suddenly they were all enveloped in light.

* * *

When they could all see again they all suddenly realised they were in some sort of control room. "Oooooh, I've always wanted to fly one of these, do you mind reclaimer? All I need are some coordinates." Fred shook his head as he plugged Jerrod into the console.

"Oh my goodness, the wealth of information in here! For starters we on the planet Genesis, which is three times the diameter of Earth, and this ship is 371.4km tall and 142.7km wide. It is 250 times bigger than any ship the UNSC knows even the theoretical Vindication-class ones, and it is almost 220 times bigger than the _Truth and Reconciliation._ The amount of knowledge in here is incredible, as it is connected to something called the Domain!" All the while Jerrod was ranting he put in the coordinates Jupiter, as they wanted ample time to communicate with Earth before they got within firing range.

Gateway started the slipspace jump. "We will be there in 8 hours but in the meantime I want release these reclaimers," he changed to face Team Katana, "and to upgrade your combat skin if you don't mind, as yours is only a class 2." Fred silently nodded towards the Spartans and they started working together to take their armour off. He trusted Gateway so far as he had helped a lot. They all had it off within 5 minutes even though they had some difficulty with dented plates.

"Why do you use such low ranking combat skins," Gateway mumbled to himself as he started to fly away, then he spoke louder, "I will have this done within seven hours, so you might want to rest, anyway, whatever you do I have my own work to do." He flew away to work with the sentinels to use spare parts on the ship to make their combat skins at least a class 14, while the Spartans, Halsey and Mendez moved around to find bearable places to sleep, though the Spartans all slept with one eye open as if they were in enemy territory.

 **A/N Because I took so long I thought you guys deserved a longer chapter. I was also thinking of making this a cross over with star wars, what are your thoughts?**


End file.
